The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, by W. Warde Fowler

541. This was originally suggested by Gellius (13. 23), ‘perhaps not without some reason,’ says Marquardt (75). This suggestion has grown almost into a certainty for the writer in the Lexicon, in a manner very characteristic of the present age of research. There would be some reason to think that Bellona (or Duellona) was an ancient goddess of central Italy, if we could be sure that the inscription on an ancient cup, in the museum at Florence, which may be read ‘Belolae poculum’ (C. I. L. i. 44), refers to this deity. See Lex. s. v. Belola.

542. Ovid, Fasti, 6. 209. See Commentarii in honorem Th. Mommseni, 262 foll. (Klügmann), and R. Peter in Lex. s. v. Herc. p. 2979.

543. Preller-Jordan, ii. 296.

544. See below, p. 146.

545. 9. 60, where Ζεὺς Πίστιος = Dius Fidius.

546. 4. 58: cp. Liv. 8. 20; Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 51. Of the porta Sanqualis I shall have a word to say presently.

547. Mr. Lang (Myth, Ritual, &c., ii. 191) has some excellent remarks on this subject.

548. Fasti, 6. 213.

549. See Wordsworth’s Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin, p. 157 ‘Semunes alternos advocapit cunctos.’ I follow Jordan’s explanation of ‘Semunes,’ in Krit. Beiträge, 204 foll.

550. Aelius Dium Fidium dicebat Diovis filium, ut Graeci Διόσκορον Castorem, et putabat hunc esse Sancum ab Sabina lingua et Herculem a Graeca’ (Varro, L. L. 5. 66).

551. Festus, 241. This is probably the sacellum of Livy, 8. 22.

552. C. I. L. vi. 568: again (ib. 567), ‘Semoni Sanco deo fidio.’ Sancus is, of course, a name, not an adjective: we find Sangus in some MSS. of Livy, 32. 1. For the well-known curious confusion with Simon Magus, Euseb. H. E. 2. 13.

553. Bréal, Tables Eugubines, 71; Bücheler, Umbrica, 65 foll. As Preller remarks, Fisus stands to Fidius as Clausus to Claudius (ii. 271). At Iguvium there was a hill, important in the rites, which bore this name—ocris fisius.

554. Aelius Stilo ap. Varro, l. c.; Ovid, l. c.; Propert. 4. 9. 74; Lactantius, 1. 15. 8; Schwegler, R. G. i. 364; Preller, ii. 272; O. Gilbert, i. 275, note; Ambrosch, Studien, 170. Jordan, however, in a note on Preller (273) emphatically says that the Sabine origin of the god is a fable; and for the illusory distinction between Latins and Sabines in Rome see Mommsen, R. H. i. 67, note, and Bréal, Hercule et Cacus, p. 56. Sancus was no doubt a Sabine deity and reputed ancestor of the race (Cato ap. Dionys. 2. 49: cp. 4. 58); but it does not follow that he came to Rome as a Sabine importation.

555. Varro, L. L. 5. 66; Festus, 229 (Propter viam); and Paulus, 147 (medius fidius).

556. Cp. Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 28 (‘Why are boys made to go out of the house when they wish to swear by Hercules?‘) with Varro, ap. Nonium, s. v. rituis, and L. L. 5. 66.

557. See below on Sept. 13, p. 231. The silex was taken out of the temple of Jupiter Feretrius (Paulus, 92).

558. Eustath. ad Od. 22. 335; Hermann, Gr. Ant. ii. 74. Cp. A. Lang, Myth, &c. ii. 54: ‘the sky hears us,’ said the Indian when taking an oath.

560. See the opinions of Hartung, Schwegler, and Preller, summed up by Bréal, Hercule et Cacus, 51 foll.; and R. Peter in Lex. s. v. Hercules, 2255 foll.

561. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 233.

562. Bücheler, Umbrica, 7; Bréal, Tables Eugubines, 270.

563. Preller, ii. 273, and Jordan’s note. In M. Gaidoz’s Études de Mythologie Gauloise, i. 64, will be found figures of a hand holding a wheel, from Bar-le-Duc (the wrist thrust through one of the holes), which may possibly explain the urfita, and which he connects with the Celtic sun-god. In this connexion we may notice the large series of Umbrian and Etruscan coins with the six-rayed wheel-symbol (Mommsen, Münzwesen, 222 foll.), which, as Professor Gardner tells me, is more probably a sun-symbol than merely the chariot-wheel convenient for unskilful coiners.

565. For the bird, Plin. N. H. 10. 20; Festus, 197 s. v. oscines, and 317 (sanqualis avis). Bouché-Leclercq, Hist. de la Divination, iv. 200. For the gate cp. Paulus, 345, with Liv. 8. 20; Jordan, Topogr. ii. 264.

566. Liv. 41. 13, with Weissenborn’s note. The stone was perhaps the same as one which had shortly before fallen into the grove of Mars at Crustumerium (41. 9).

567. C. I. L. vi. 567. 568; and Bull. dell’Inst., 1881, p. 38 foll. (This last with a statue, which, however, may not belong to it: Jordan’s note on Preller, ii. 273.) Wilmanns, Exempla Inscr. Lat. 1300.

568. Marq. 263; B.-Leclercq, iv. 51 foll. The Scholiast on Persius, 2. 27, is explicit on the point. But Deecke, in a note to Müller’s Etrusker (ii. 275) doubts the connexion of the decuria with bidental = puteal.

569. Festus, s. v. Scribonianum (p. 333: the restoration can hardly be wrong) ‘[quia ne]fas est integi, semper ibi forami[ne aper]to caelum patet.’

570. L. L. 5. 66 ‘ut ea videatur divum, id est caelum.’ He connects the word divum with Dius Fidius. See Jordan in the collection of essays ‘in honorem Th. Mommseni,’ p. 369.

571. Martianus Capella, 1. 45 (p. 47 in Eyssenhardt’s edition). See Nissen’s explanation in Das Templum, p. 184, and plate iv. In this account Jupiter occupies the chief place: Sancus is there, alone in the 12th regio. But doubt has been cast on Nissen’s view by the discovery of an actual representation of the caeli templum (see Aust, in Lex. s. v. Iupiter, 668).

572. Dionys. 4. 58. In 9. 60 he says that this temple was only vowed by Tarquinius, and not dedicated till 466 B.C. (Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 6); but there must have been a still earlier sanctuary of some kind (Livy writes of a sacellum, 8. 20. 8). Dionysius is interesting and explicit; he calls Dius Fidius Ζεὺς Πίστιος, and adds the name Σάγκος. The treaties next in date, those with Carthage, were kept in the aedilium thesaurus, close to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus (Polyb. 3. 22; Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii. 1 (ed. 2) 481 note). Here we seem to see the authority of the ancient Dius Fidius already losing ground.

573. Plut. Quaest. Rom. 30; Varro, ap. Plin. N. H. 8. 194; Festus, 238. It was Reifferscheid’s conjecture that she was a female Dius Fidius (see Wissowa, Lex. 1190). Fest. 241 adds ‘cuius ex zona periclitantes ramenta sumunt.’

574. Bull. dell’ Inst., 1867, 352 foll. Reifferscheid was prevented by death from working his view out more fully; but R. Peter (see Lex. s. v. Hercules, 2267) preserved notes of his lectures.

575. Gellius, 11. 6. 1. For Juno as female equivalent of Genius see article ‘Iunones’ in Lex. But it does not seem proved that this was the old name, and not an idea of comparatively late times.

576. Seneca, Ep. 12. 2.

577. See below, on Aug. 12, p. 194.

578. This seems a weak point. Bona Dea was not more closely related to Juno than some others. I do not feel sure that the name Juno is not as much an intrusion here as Hercules, and that the real female counterpart of Genius, &c., was not a nameless numen like the Bona Dea. The rise of the cult of Juno Lucina may have produced this intrusion. It is worth noting that in Etruria Minerva takes the place of Juno (Lex. 2266, and the illustration on 2267).

579. Serv. Ecl. 4. 62.

581. Gerhard, Etruskische Spiegel, 147. It is also figured in Lex. s. v. Hercules, 2259.

582. e. g. by every writer in Roscher’s Lexicon who has touched on the subject. Jordan seems to have dissented (Preller, ii. 284).

583. The opposition or conflict of the two is paralleled by the supposed myth of the contention of Mars and Minerva (Nerio) (see above, p. 60; Lex. 2265).

584. See article ‘Iunones’ in Lex.; and De-Marchi, La Religione nella vita domestica, p. 70.

585. Roscher’s article ‘Juno’ in Lex. passim.

586. I cannot agree with Mr. Jevons (Introduction to History of Religion, p. 186 foll.) when he makes the Roman genius a relic of totemism, simply because genii were often represented by serpents. The snake was too universally worshipped and domesticated to be easily explained as a totem. Mr. Frazer has an interesting example from Zululand, which is singularly suggestive in connexion with the doctrine of Genius (see Golden Bough, ii. 332), which can hardly be explained on a totemistic basis. The doctrine of Genius may certainly have had its roots in a totemistic age; but by the time it reaches us in Roman literature it has passed through so many stages that its origin is not to be dogmatized about.

587. I cannot attach much weight to the argument (see Lex. 2268) that because Aelius Stilo explained Dius Fidius as Diovis Filius he therefore had in his head some such relation of Genius to Jupiter.

588. If he had written Genius Iovius, after the manner of the Iguvian inscription, with its adjectival forms which preserve a reminiscence of the older spirit-world, he might have been nearer the mark. It may be that we get back to Jupiter himself as the Genius par excellence, but there is no direct proof of this. The genius of a god is a late idea, as Mr. Jevons points out in a note to Roman Questions, p. liii.

589. Livy, 22. 9; Ovid, Fasti, 6. 241 foll.; Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 19.

590. Livy, 23. 31 and 32; Marq. 270.

591. Marq. 358 foll.; Article ‘Sibyllini libri’ in Dict. of Antiquities, ed. 2.

592. Livy, 22. 9, 10; 23. 30, 31.

593. Ad Aen. 1. 720.

594. Plut. de Fort. Rom. 5. 10; Cic. Nat. Deor. 2. 61. Aust (de Aedibus sacris, p. 19) puts it in B.C. 115, in Scaurus’ consulship.

595. Ovid, Fasti, 6. 219 foll.; Festus, 250, s. v. Penus: ‘[Penus vo]catur locus intimus in aede Vestae, tegetibus saeptus, qui certis diebus circa Vestalia aperitur. Ii dies religiosi habentur.’

596. For the meanings of nefastus and religiosus see Introduction, p. 9; Marq. 291.

597. No doubt this was done, and the lines composed, in order to please Augustus and reflect the revival of the old religio.

598. Varro, L. L. 6. 32.

599. Vol. xiv, No. 28.

601. Marq. 250. In the Andaman Islands both sons and daughters take part in the work of maintaining the fires (Man’s Andaman Islands, quoted by Mr. Frazer, op. cit. p. 153).

602. See my article ‘Sacerdos’ in Dict. of Antiquities, ed. 2.

603. Vesta herself was originally simply the fire on the hearth (Frazer, op. cit. 152). Note that the flame was obtained afresh each year on March 1, even in historical times, by the primitive method of the friction of the wood of a ‘lucky’ tree (Festus, 106), or from the sun’s rays. We are not told which priest performed this rite.

604. Middleton, Rome in 1885, p. 181 foll.

605. This belief, and the nature of the treasures, are fully discussed by Marquardt, p. 251, with additions by Wissowa.

606. Cp. Petronius, Sat. 44 (of the aquaelicium).

607. Fasti, 6. 395 foll.

609. As the beast that usually worked in mills? There is a Pompeian painting of this scene (Gerhard, Ant. Bild. pl. 62).

610. Varro, L. L. 6. 32 ‘Dies qui vocatur Q. St. D. F. ab eo appellatur quod eo die ex aede Vestae stercus everritur et per Capitolinum clivum in locum defertur certum.’ It is Ovid who tells us it was thrown into the Tiber (Fasti, 6. 713).

611. Jordan, Tempel der Vesta, p. 63.

612. The crushing of the grain no doubt comes down from a time when there were no mills (Helbig, Italiker in der Poebene, 17 and 72). The preparation of the cakes was also peculiar, and even that of the salt which was used in them (Festus, 159; cp. Serv. Ecl. 8. 82). The latter passage is the locus classicus for all these duties: ‘Virgines Vestales tres maximae ex nonis Maiis ad pridie Idus Maias alternis diebus (i. e. on 7th, 9th, 11th?) spicas adoreas in corbibus messuariis ponunt, easque spicas ipsae virgines torrent, pinsunt, molunt, atque ita molitum condunt. Ex eo farre virgines ter in anno molam faciunt, Lupercalibus, Vestalibus, Idibus Septembribus, adiecto sale cocto et sale duro.’ For examples of the primitive method of cooking see Miss Kingsley’s Travels in West Africa, p. 208; and Sir Joseph Banks’s Journal (ed. Hooker), p. 137.

613. Penus means, in the first instance, food. Cic. Nat. Deorum, 2. 68 ‘Est omne quo vescuntur homines penus.’ Hence it came to mean the store-closet in the centre of the house, of which the Penates were the guardian spirits. Its sacred character is indicated in a passage of Columella (R. R. 12. 4; and see my paper on the toga praetexta of Roman children, in Classical Review, Oct. 1896).

614. Varro, ap. S. Aug. de Civ. 7. 24; cp. 7. 16. Ovid, Fasti, 6. 267, writes, ‘Vesta eadem quae terra,’ but more correctly in 291, ‘Nec tu aliud Vestam quam vivam intellige flammam.’ Some moderns derive Vesta from root vas = ‘dwelling,’ and make her the earth in special relation to the dwelling; e. g. O. Gilbert, i. 348 note.

615. Preuner, Hestia-Vesta, p. 221 ‘Gottheit des Feuers, sofern religiöse, ethische Ideen sich in demselben abspiegeln, nicht des Feuers als blossen Elements.’ This is surely turning the question upside down.

616. Tylor, Prim. Cult. ii. 251; Grimm, German Mythology (Eng. trans.), p. 601 foll.

617. In July also the days were nefasti from the Kalends to the 9th; but to the meaning of this we have no clue whatever.

618. See above, p. 115.

619. G. B. ii. 75. In an appendix (p. 373 foll. and esp. 382) will be found some other examples of the same type of ritual. Cp. also ii. 176 (from Punjaub), which example, however, does not seem in any way connected with harvest. But the practice of the Creek Indians is so unusually well attested that it deserves special attention. It is described by no less than four independent authorities (see Mr. Frazer’s note on p. 76).

620. Nissen, Landeskunde, 399.

621. The whole of Mr. Frazer’s section on the sacramental eating of new crops should be read in connexion with the Vestalia.

622. Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 7; Liv. 5. 19 and 23. The temple was in the Forum boarium, near the Circus maximus.

623. Wissowa in Myth. Lex. s. v. Mater Matuta, 2463.

624. Ovid, Fasti, 6. 473 foll.; Cic. Nat. Deor. 3. 48; Tusc. 1. 28. Plutarch (Quaest. Rom. 16. 1) noted a likeness between her cult and that of Leucothea in his own city of Chaeroneia; an interesting passage, though quite inconclusive as to the Greek origin of Mater Matuta. Plutarch, like Servius (Aen. 5. 241) and others, has adopted Ovid’s legend of Ino by way of explanation of the identity of Leucothea and Matuta. Merkel (Fasti, clxxxiv) believed the cult to be wholly Greek; Bouché-Leclercq (Hist. de Divination, iv. 147) follows Klausen in identifying Mater Matuta with Tethys (cf. Plut. Rom. 2) and with the deity of the oracle at Pyrgi. But see Wesseling on Diod. Sic. 15, p. 337; and Strabo, Bk. 5, p. 345.

625. C. I. L. i. 176, 177.

626. Liv. 6. 33. 4; Wissowa, Lex. 2462.

627. Diod. Sic. 15. 14, p. 337, and Wesseling’s note. The temple at Pyrgi was an important one, and rich enough to be plundered by Dionysius I of Syracuse. But it must be admitted that the identification of the deity of Pyrgi with Mater Matuta is not absolutely certain. Strabo, l. c., calls her Eileithyia, Aristotle (Oecon. 1349 b) Leucothea; and it is thought that Mater Matuta alone combines the characteristics of these two. If, however, the goddess of Pyrgi was the deity of the oracle, she might almost as well have been a Fortuna, like those of Antium and Praeneste.

628. Tertullian, de Monogam. 17.

629. Ovid, Fasti, 6. 481, with Plut. Q. R. 16; Camill. 5.

630. Varro, L. L. 5. 106. Ovid (482) writes of liba tosta, i. e. cakes cooked in pans rather than baked, like the mola salsa. See above, p. 149; and cp. Ovid, 532 ‘in subito cocta foco.’

631. Plut. ll. cc.; Ovid, 559 foll.

632. See below on Jan. 11. I cannot explain the rule that a woman prayed for nephews and nieces before her own children, which is peculiar to this cult.

633. Preller, i. 322; Wissowa in Lex.

634. R. H. (Eng. trans.) i. 162.

636. Paulus, 122 ‘Matrem Matutam antiqui ob bonitatem appellabant, et maturum idoneum usui,’ &c. See also Curtius, Gk. Etym. I. 408.

637. Fasti, 6. 569 foll.; 625 foll.: cp. Dionysius, 4. 40. Ovid has three fanciful explanations of the draping.

638. Ovid, l.c.; Dionys. 4. 40.

639. Varro ap. Nonium, p. 189; Plin. N. H. 8. 194, 197. See Schwegler, R. G. i. 712, note 3, and a full discussion in Lex. by R. Peter, s.v. Fortuna, p. 1509.

640. Dio Cassius, 58. 7.

641. Seneca, Q. N. 2. 41; Müller-Deecke, Etrusker, ii. 83; Dennis, Etruria, i, Introduction lvi. The passage of Seneca is a very curious one about the Etruscan lightning-lore. O. Müller guesses that the di involuti were Fates (Schicksalsgottheiten), which would suit Fortuna (cp. Hor. Od. 1. 35).

642. There is just a possibility that it was confused with a statue of Pudicitia, also in foro boario, and also said to have been veiled (Festus, 242). Varro, l. c., calls the goddess of the statue, Fortuna Virgo, and Preller suggested that she was identical with Pudicitia. The lines of Ovid seem to favour this view (Fasti, 6. 617 foll.):

Veste data tegitur. Vetat hanc Fortuna moveri
Et sic e templo est ipsa locuta suo;
‘Ore revelato qua primum luce patebit
Servius, haec positi prima pudoris erit.
Parcite, matronae, vetitas attingere vestes:
Sollemni satis est voce movere preces.’

643. Mommsen in C. I. L. i. 2, 298.

644. Livy, 9. 30; Val. Max. 2. 5. 4; Varro, L. L. 6. 17. Cp. C. I. L. vi. 3696 [Magistri] quinq(uennales) [collegi] teib(icinum) Rom(anorum) qui s(acris) p(ublicis) p(raesto) s(unt) Iov(i) Epul(oni) s(acrum).

645. So Preller, i. 198.

646. Aust, in Lex. s. v. Iuppiter, 680. Both here and in his work de Aedibus sacris, this scholar declines to distinguish between Iup. Invictus and Iup. Victor.

647. For Minerva as the patron of all such guilds see Wissowa in Lex. s. v. Minerva, 2984 foll.

648. Varro, L. L. 6. 17. There were three days of revelry, according to Livy (9. 30): did they meet in this temple on each day? The 13th was the day of the epulum; which the other days were we do not know.

650. Festus, 149, s. v. minusculae. Cf. Ovid, Fasti, 6. 695.

651. Livy, l. c. Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 55, who confuses two Appii Claudii, and refers the story to the Decemvir instead of to the Censor of 311 B.C. Livy omits the very Roman trait (Ov. 673 foll.) of the libertus feigning to be surprised by his patronus.

652. Cohen, Méd. Pl. 33; Borghesi, Op. i. 201 (quoted by Marq. 577).

653. Müller-Deecke, Etrusker, ii. 202.

654. Journal of Philology, vol. xi. p. 189. It was a short pipe played with a reed, and no doubt almost the same thing as the short rough oboes which are still favourites in Italy, and which are still sometimes played two at a time in the mouth as of old. Their antiquity is vouched for by the law of the Twelve Tables, which limited the players at a funeral to ten. See Professor Anderson’s article ‘tibia’ in Dict. of Ant. (ed. 2).

655. Fasti, 6. 731.

656. Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 13.

657. Not to be confused, as in Livy, Epit. 14, with a statue of Summanus himself on the same temple (in fastigio Iovis: Cicero, Div. 1. 10).

658. de Civ. Dei, 4. 23.

659. Festus, 229, s. v. Proversum fulgor: ‘Quod diurna Iovis, nocturna Summani fulgura habentur.’ (Cp. Pliny, N. H. 2. 52.) An interesting inscription (C. I. L. vi. 206) runs, ‘Summanium fulgus conditum,’ i. e. ‘a bolt which fell before dawn was buried here.’

661. Müller-Deecke, Etrusker, ii. 60.

662. Études de Mythologie Gauloise, i. p. 92. M. Gaidoz looks on these wheel-cakes as ‘emblematic of Summanus’ as a god of sun and sky.